Opposition: Labour peer Helena Kennedy QC (pictured) opposed a Bill of Rights being considered by the £700,000 Commission on a Bill of Rights

A panel set up to examine human rights law in Britain was branded ‘fatally flawed’ last night – after it failed to discuss controversial rulings by Strasbourg judges.

The Commission on a Bill of Rights cost £700,000 and took 19 months, but did not look at whether Britain should pull out of the discredited European Court of Human Rights.

The commission, filled with lawyers proposed by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, could not even reach a unanimous conclusion on the central question of whether there should be a new British Bill of Rights.

Two Lib Dem appointed members – Labour peer Helena Kennedy QC and Lib Dem adviser Philippe Sands QC – opposed such a bill, saying there was nothing wrong with the Human Rights Act.

In a damning paper appended to the main report, two Tory panel members, Lord Faulks QC and Jonathan Fisher QC, criticised the Commission’s narrow scope, saying it had been prevented from discussing ‘critically important matters’.

They said it had been wrong to prevent the Commission considering either withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights or ditching the convention on which it bases its decisions.

Critics of the court say judicial activism – judges making up the law instead of interpreting it – has resulted in the court ruling on areas such as prisoner votes and equality law that should be matters for Parliament or national courts.

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The two QCs wrote: ‘Since our appointment as members of the Commission on a Bill of Rights, it has become increasingly clear that a key issue, if not the key issue, has not been adequately considered by the Commission and reflected in the terms of the report.’

‘As the overview of the Commission’s report makes clear, by virtue of its terms of reference, the Commission has been required to proceed on the assumption that the UK is to remain a member of the Convention,’ they wrote.

As a result, the Commission left behind ‘vitally important unfinished business’, they said.

The Commission emerged from a Tory manifesto commitment to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights to stop rampant abuse by criminals and terrorists.

The Commission on a Bill of Rights cost £700,000 and took 19 months, but did not look at whether Britain should pull out of the discredited European Court of Human Rights (above)

But following the coalition with the Lib Dems, this was watered down to a Commission to examine the best way forward. Insiders said the Commission was undermined from the very beginning by the deputy prime minister’s insistence that it only consider how to ‘build on’ the Human Rights Act.

In May, only months after it started deliberating, a senior Tory member, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, quit claiming it had been rigged by Mr Clegg and then Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.

There were also reports that the chairman, Sir Leigh Lewis, threatened to resign.

Last night Mr Pinto-Duschinsky said the Commission was like ‘Hamlet without the Prince if you don’t discuss Strasbourg’.

‘I completely agree that it’s artificial to explore a British Bill of Rights in a vacuum because the Strasbourg court currently has the last word on any British decisions,’ he said.

‘Only by withdrawing from the Strasbourg Court will we redeem rights in our own country.’

Fellow Tory MP Dominic Raab, who has led opposition in the Commons to votes for prisoners, said: ‘It’s crazy that the one thing they all agreed on was fundamental Strasbourg reform, and yet that was the one thing the Lib Dems vetoed the Commission from even considering.’

The Fisher paper was one of nine separate documents written by panel members and appended to the report to demonstrate differing views.

In their minority report, Baroness Kennedy and Professor Sands said the rest of the panel had failed to identify any shortcomings in the current human rights system.

And they backed the extension of human rights rules to include ‘socio-economic rights’ such as a right to education and healthcare – but the majority of seven rejected this suggestion.